


gotta rob or steal, no big deal (this is how we do it now)

by TheTartWitch



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Dubious Amounts of Sanity, F/M, Gen, Mildly angry Sheriff-bashing, Scott McCall is a Bad Friend, Stiles (and Peter) is going to get even, Stiles is Magic, Themesong for this is Royalty by Conor Maynard, stiles is misunderstood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 09:58:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12033540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTartWitch/pseuds/TheTartWitch
Summary: My title for this on the rough draft was going to be "Stiles and Lydia bromance is interrupted by Scott's idiocy", but that doesn't really fit anymore. Stiles got together a new pack, woke up Peter, and basically dealt with everything and everyone before they could become problems. Scott doesn't actually factor much into this. I mean, he's not a great friend (still), but he's like the angry child without much of a real thing to do.





	gotta rob or steal, no big deal (this is how we do it now)

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbetaed. If anyone wants to handle that for me, let me know and we'll find some way of getting that done. It would be really nice of you and I'm always willing to return the favor. :)  
> I have changed so many things about Stiles' backstory, but hopefully it's semi explained within? Like, I headcanon magic running in Claudia's family but that she died before she could know if Stiles had it too? But in this, she lives long enough to know? Idk help me

Before Scott, there was Lydia. Before Lydia, there was his mother. Before that, there was nothing.  
When his mother was alive, his father didn’t drink so much. There was something alive in the plants around their house, in the way she’d walk into a room and smile and one or two of your problems wouldn’t matter anymore, because she’d fix it somehow. When she dies, certain things cease to matter. He doesn’t censor himself anymore; when someone looks uncomfortable at something he’s saying, he soldiers through. Life isn’t fair. Get used to being uncomfortable, because people aren’t going to stop for you.  
It got him in trouble a lot, that way of thinking. His teacher said it was impolite and too cynical. His father didn’t say anything at all, just asked to speak with her alone.  
It was outside during that parent-teacher conference that he met Lydia, reading on the bench under a tree. He liked her; when he sat down next to her and didn’t say anything, she didn’t say anything either. But she did move over a little so he’d have room when his father’s voice rose inside the classroom, desperate and a little inconsiderate and uncaring for the fact that his son knew things about living and dying that none of the other kids in his class knew yet, or maybe ever would.  
Lydia heard all of that, and understood, and didn’t say a word about any of it to anyone, even years later when Jackson smelled blood in the water around Stiles and went hunting. She didn’t say a thing.  
\--  
He and Lydia aren’t friends. They sit together, and she’ll read and pretend she’s not listening to him, and he’ll mumble under his breath and do homework and pretend, for a moment, that when he goes home his father will have taken the empty bottles out of the sink and maybe bought groceries for the first time in two weeks and he’ll have something to eat besides three boxes of rationed Cheez-Its and water from the kitchen tap. The bills will be paid on time, without needing a forged signature or a sympathetic look from Ms. Band at the post office who gives him half-off all his stamps.  
He knows it won’t be like that. Not yet. But that’s why it’s called pretending.  
\--  
Scott tells the story differently. The way he tells it, Lydia doesn’t exist. It makes Stiles sound good, the way Scott tells it, but that doesn’t make it true.  
He doesn’t see the only boy with asthma in their class alone at the sandbox. He doesn’t go up to Scott and begin playing. That’s a pretty idea, but Stiles doesn’t work like that.  
He sits with Lydia. She’s reading something complicated, something too much for kids their age, definitely too much for Scott. Stiles could probably figure it out, but he’s got homework and Lydia didn’t offer to let him try. Scott approaches. He doesn’t do it on purpose; the bullies of that age are just as physical with their disapproval as later on and have no difficulty herding the smaller asthmatic around. It just so happens that today they’re near the benches.  
Lydia shifts away. She’s never had much interest in collecting minions or settling the pettier power squabbles. That develops later on. At that age, she’s still absorbed in the worlds in her books, in her equations, in her scribbled homework handed back already with bright, brilliant, blooming A+.  
Stiles is the one Scott is shoved into. The bench rocks, Lydia growls in discontent, and Stiles’ homework and budgeting notes are tossed off into the air and scatter. A week of effort and difficult concentration gone, because one group of children decided something stupid was important that wasn’t, really. Later, this will describe quite a lot of his life. Now, it pisses him off.  
He stands up. Lydia watches without appearing to, unused to action being taken by Stiles. Scott is still recovering on the ground. He doesn’t see the way Stiles’ eyes appear darker with something violent, how when he steps toward the other children they step back. Jackson isn’t involved yet. He’s around, somewhere, but he’s small. Unnoticed. It’s elementary school. No one has real power in elementary school.  
When Scott looks up, all he knows is that Stiles has chased off the three children who wouldn’t leave him alone with nothing more than a step forward and a hissed word. He barely even notices Lydia sitting quietly on the bench, eyes a little wider than they were before, book tilted a little lower than it had been as she read. He may develop some sort of puppy love or imprinting on Stiles after that. Stiles doesn’t care; he’s chasing the fragments of his life scattered across the blacktop of the playground.  
\--  
Lydia isn’t his friend, not the way his mom was. They don’t plant gardens together or discuss cloud formations or do anything with hypothetical magic (it’s one of his mother’s old games: say you can do something magical, something amazing. What everyday thing would you do with your hypothetical extraordinary ability?) or sit on the porch eating food they’d made together, but she doesn’t need to do that with him. They understand each other. There’s no need for spoken word or written language when all you have to do is look at each other to nearly read the other’s mind.  
Which is why Scott’s attachment is so troublesome. He’s derogatory in an innocent way, always asking why. Why is Lydia friends with someone like you? Why did you shave your head? Where’s your dad, doesn’t he pick you up? Or Stiles’ favorite: where’s your mom?  
Lydia doesn’t like him. She’ll sit by Stiles and turn her book’s page, flip her hair over one shoulder, and make a note with a pencil, and Stiles can tell she’s just made a joke about the math equation she sneered at three minutes before. To Scott, it’s just studying. It’s just Lydia.  
_Just Lydia_. Two words that don’t belong in that order, or even in the same sentence. It’s never just Lydia to Stiles. But of course, saying that to Scott just convinces the other boy of Stiles’ crush on her.  
\--  
They maintain this balance, this delicate shivering over a cliff, a precipice, through middle school and nearly through freshman year of high school. Stiles and Lydia are a pair, inseparable. Scott is dragged along for the ride with his fists clenched in the back of Stiles’ shirt and pulling himself against the riptide.  
Jackson happens in high school. He’s pretty, rich, and moderately powerful in his own right. He’s captain of the resident sports team, which shouldn’t mean as much as it does. He catches Lydia’s eye immediately, as she has begun to feel the lack of leverage and social standing she has and that she feels she will require in the future. Stiles notices her watching the blonde and shrugs his acknowledgment. Scott is, as ever, oblivious.  
Jackson doesn’t like Stiles. Lydia is far too attached to the other boy for his ego to handle, and Stiles doesn’t react properly to the normal things. He doesn’t react to what a teenage boy believes is important; he reacts to what Lydia thinks is important. Jackson’s posturing heads a brick wall head-on when it comes to Stiles, but Scott is an easy target.  
Or so he thinks. The first time he moves in on the asthmatic, Lydia gently but with a grip like steel pulls him away. Her cheerful _I own the world you’re living in_ smile promises something awful if he doesn’t comply and contrary to popular belief, there is something he’s afraid of, so he goes quietly.  
“Touch him,” she says later, softly, as the bell rings for first hour that they happen to share, “and Stiles will make sure it’s all returned on you.” He glances at her, eyebrows raised, and she sighs. “Not because he cares overly much for Scott, but because Stiles has enough things to deal with without having to listen to Scott’s griping. It would be inconvenient.”  
\--  
Werewolves happen. They happen in the sense that Stiles goes to visit the nurses at Melissa’s part of the hospital and something in one of the rooms catches his eye: the controlled stillness of someone who knows they’re being watched but thinks the movement is more important than the possibility of discovery. It piques his interest.  
Scott is absorbed in Melissa and doesn’t notice Stiles slipping away.  
\--  
“Hello,” he says calmly. The man’s burns are terrible in the way that makes him imagine them happening, imagine how this man felt. “I know you can hear me. I know you’re awake. If it hurts to talk, we can find some other way of communicating.”  
The man’s fingers twitch. His eyes don’t move, but there’s a subtle sharpening, as though Stiles’ words have brought him back from something far away.  
“...” He croaks, and Stiles understands. He pulls his homework out of his bag and settles at the table in the man’s line of sight.  
“That’s fine if you can’t speak yet. I’ll be here until you can.” He stays until visiting hours end, and then he packs up and goes home, where his father has begun to pay bills again and do the dishes and will occasionally attempt to figure out the washing machine before giving up. It’s not the best they’ve been, but things have changed.  
The next day, he goes back.  
\--  
Lydia comes a few times. While they aren’t friends, Stiles has power that could rival hers if he gave it a chance, so what interests him must also interest her. Her lips turn down just very slightly at the sight of Peter, who is Stiles’ mystery man, but not out of disgust. It’s a sort of sympathetic reaction from her. They sit and do homework together and occasionally tell Peter things about them and listen to his silences and understand. They know he was in a fire, that he burned trying to save his family. They know some of them survived, but they aren’t here now ( _Stiles’ throat burns with anger at that._ _Don’t they see how lucky they are? Their family is still here, still waiting for them to come back for him, and they don’t even realize how precious that is, even after losing everything else_ ).  
They know someone did this to his family on purpose and hasn’t been arrested, hasn’t even been investigated because around that time Stiles’s father the Sheriff had just lost his wife and was lost himself to a drunken stupor.  
(Stiles’ lips turn white at that, and he must stand and shakily leave the room for something to hit and break and destroy the way one event has destroyed so much of his life, so much of someone else’s.)  
Scott comes once. It seems to make him uncomfortable, standing in the room of a man he’s never met and listening to them speak through the silence so Peter isn’t quite so alone as he used to be. He doesn’t come back.  
\--  
The first word Peter says is Stiles’ name.  
The second word Peter says is Lydia’s name.  
The third word Peter says is _argent._  
The way he says it, hissed and vibrating and fragmenting into violent pieces, makes Stiles and Lydia immediately attentive.  
It’s the day after Scott’s visit. Allison Argent is a new student at Beacon Hills High as of several days ago.  
Lydia calmly packs up her belongings, kisses Peter on his unmarked cheek, and goes home. She gets her phone out and thinks through possible conversation paths as she taps the number she wants to call. As it rings, she practices which of her numerous expressions to choose from.  
“Hey, Ally!” She smiles as the line clicks and her newest friend picks up. Facial expression colors the words you speak, and she needs to succeed at this.  
Stiles simply pauses his homework, looks up at Peter’s eyes, wild before but settled now at Lydia’s physical affirmation and Stiles’ calm determination.  
“Don’t worry, Peter.” Stiles says. “We’ll be here until you’re ready, and then we’ll be wherever you need to go after that.”  
He stays until the end of visiting hours.  
\--  
Scott somehow looks betrayed when Stiles introduces himself to Allison the next day. It’s a casual thing, a handshake and a quick smile, before he allows Lydia to pull him into a hug. She whispers in his ear about an Aunt Kate who’d lived here years before, and a grandfather who often came to visit the woman. She punctuates it to a kiss to his cheek, right where she’d kissed Peter, and he nods, kisses her back, and turns towards his first hour class. Jackson’s unintelligible rage follows him down the hall and around the corner before retreating from his side with a desolate puff of air.  
Danny’s in his first class and regales him on stories of Jackson’s planned revenge that always fall through because Stiles leaves no openings for that sort of thing that Lydia doesn’t cover and Jackson’s legitimately terrified of her in a mood (hence The Notebook’s recurring appearance on their couple movie nights). Stiles gives him a Look and doesn’t say anything.  
“Hey,” Danny says as class winds down and eventually ends. “Whatever you and Lydia are doing with Allison, let me in on it, okay? I don’t want you guys doing something dangerous or illegal alone.”  
Stiles gives him another Look, but this one is considering. He nods after a moment.  
“Meet me at my jeep after school,” he returns, and leaves.  
\--  
Lydia doesn’t mention Danny’s sudden appearance, but he can tell by the flick of her hair over her shoulder and the way her right heel hits the ground with more force than strictly necessary that she’s curious. He gestures Danny into Peter’s room and introduces them.  
“Danny’s going to help us, Peter. Now we can gather evidence to support our actions. Won’t it be so satisfying to let the world know you’re in the right as your revenge occurs?” He murmurs absentmindedly, pencil poised over his calculus.  
Danny waves slightly and opens his new, school-issued laptop. Stiles honestly has no idea what he does next, but it appears to sink him into his working mindset because he slips his earbuds in and sits up straighter, fingers flying over the keys sometimes and pausing, shivering, hovering, others.  
Peter grumbles a little in a good-natured way after a while, so Stiles assumes Danny has been approved.  
\--  
People don’t begin dying of animal attacks. Stiles subtly suggests a walk because Peter’s been growing more responsive and he wants him to see some nature again, and Melissa approves. A nurse goes with them, of course, and they only walk the small hospital-created path in the back, but it’s good for Peter, seeing all that. Smelling Stiles and Lydia and Danny nearby, ready to help him with what he needs to feel strong again.  
Stiles sends a letter to an address in New York. It’s short, simple; it’s a Beacon Hills postcard with a picture of the Preserve on it, and on the back he’s written a few words. He shows them to Peter before sending it, unwilling to do something against Peter’s will when he has yet to recover full motor function, and gets the okay.  
One pack’s trash is another man’s treasure, right? Thanks for the contribution. We’ll take good care of it.  
He hasn’t given a return address, but he slips a business card from the hospital in the envelope so they realize it’s not an empty threat. Peter wants his last vestige of family here to watch as his revenge takes back what they did not. Stiles is okay with this. Lydia and Danny don’t feel the hurt as personally as they do, but they approve of Stiles’ plan anyway. Peter’s family left him to die, but Stiles and Lydia and Danny are there to gather the pieces and build him a newer, better family.  
\--  
He corners Allison after school one day. It’s dark after lacrosse practice, and he trails her across the street and down to her car, letting his footsteps echo as she grows more and more skittery. When she gets in, he taps on the window with a smile. It borders on friendly, he’s sure, but there’s something definitively missing. She notices, but rolls the window down anyway.  
“Hey, Stiles,” she says, obviously uncomfortable. That’s fine. He’s not there to make her comfortable. He’s there to begin Peter’s revenge.  
“Hey, Allison. You have an Aunt Kate, right?” He waits until she nods. “She left this at my friend’s house a few years ago, Derek? I just thought she should get it back. It looks… special.” He waits until her hand opens and gently drops what he’s holding into it. He waves and smiles and turns away, but then looks back. “Hey, tell her to look me up, okay? It’d be great to talk again, return the favor, after all this time.” She nods, confused, but he’s not there for her. He’s there for Peter. He leaves in his jeep, and she’s still sitting there, staring down at the silver lighter in her open fist, as he turns the corner and drives home.  
\--  
It doesn’t take long for Kate to show up. The Hales haven’t returned to town yet, so it’s just Stiles at the Hale house’s empty shell that night when she drops by. She seems proud of the way the house crumbles at the edges, the soot-less patches where bodies kept the ash from settling. Stiles leans against his jeep and smiles brightly. There are sharp edges to it, but she’s too blinded to notice.  
“Hey, Kate. Get my message?” He says, and when her eyes narrow at him thoughtfully he grins. “My friend’s message, I mean. He’s not in town right now, probably doesn’t even realize I’m borrowing his name, but that’s fine. I don’t really care about him anyway.”  
She seems a little caught off guard and doesn’t say anything yet. That’s good; he doesn’t want to hear her voice.  
“Katherine Argent,” he reads off the paper he’s pulled out of his pocket. “Daughter of Gerard Argent, next in line to lead the Argent Hunters. Guilty of multiple accounts of arson, murder, and voluntary manslaughter.” He smiles angelically at her gradually tightening face. “Incidentally, doesn’t like werewolves. Has been described as ‘psychopathic’.”  
Her face whitens, probably from rage. He’s still smiling. If he stops, he might scream at her.  
“Well,” he says softly. “I guess I’ll be seeing you around, huh?”  
And then he gets into his jeep and drives away.  
\--  
Danny sets up a system that tracks her through her phone, vehicle, and any active cameras that pick her up. Peter gets a gps system of her coordinates directly linked to his phone just like the rest of them. When Allison mentions her aunt’s weird behavior to Scott and Lydia and Jackson, Stiles knows immediately. Lydia texts him about it, and then Scott texts him angrily, frantically, about approaching Allison in the dark like a creepy stalker just to give her something for her aunt. Which, he says, is also a weird, creepy stalker thing to do.  
Danny laughs at Stiles’ irritated scowl and offers to help him block Scott. Stiles refuses. Not listening to Scott’s issues would just mean more nagging. He’d rather focus on the important things, like how Peter can now say nearly-complete sentences, or how Lydia had recently corrected one of his answers and that isn’t allowed to happen again, or how Jackson had almost worked up the courage to experiment with glitter in relation to Stiles, but then he had seen Lydia’s face and had quietly put the glitter back on the craft store’s shelf, then pretended he hadn’t thought any such thing.  
\--  
It doesn’t take long to get Chris Argent interested in him. He’s heard about him from his daughter and his sister, and now he’s going to see for himself.  
He has the good grace not to go to Stiles’ house or the Hale house. He follows Stiles one night after he leaves the hospital and Stiles congenially pulls over to the side of the road for him.  
“Want to tell me why you’re bothering my family, Mr. Stilinski?” Chris asks. His crossbow is loaded but lowered and thankfully he hasn’t seen fit to injure Stiles’ jeep.  
“Want to tell me why they bothered the peaceful, law-abiding Hales, Mr. Argent?” He returns, and it’s a little annoying how often he’s needing to break out the fake smiles.  
“Be careful who you accuse, son.” Chris warns. His fingers are relaxed around his weapon, but he’s a professional. Stiles isn’t counting on that giving him away.  
“Be careful who you burn,” Stiles says. His smile is deeper now, darker, reminiscent of bullies on the playground running away. “Because ghosts don’t leave just because you’re unaware of your crimes.”  
Chris lets him go after that, thoughtful. Peter doesn’t think he had anything to do with the fire, which doesn’t make him innocent. It just makes him ignorant.  
\--  
When Peter can talk and move about on his own and the burns are gradually shrinking and becoming less shiny and warped, Stiles takes him home. They’ve bought him an apartment where they can pretend he lives, and clothes and books and everything they can to pretend he didn’t lose anything in the fire. It doesn’t work, not yet, maybe not ever, but that’s why it’s called pretending.  
Peter lives out of Stiles’ bedroom. His father doesn’t notice, which would say something but he didn’t notice Stiles’ late hours or strange behavior either, so it really doesn’t say anything at all that he doesn’t notice this either.  
Scott isn’t talking to Stiles anymore. It’s complete radio silence ever since Allison learned what she was and began to avoid him for training and happened to mention Stiles name in the explanation. For some reason, he’s convinced Stiles is suddenly attempting to steal both Lydia and Allison from he and Jackson, which even Jackson thinks is stupid.  
\--  
Derek and Laura show up in town late that night, the night he’s planning to meet up with the Argents and face them down. His dad’s the Sheriff, so the other officers have taken pity on him over the years and taken him to the gun range a few times, so he’s got guns with poisoned bullets. Just two (one on him, one in his car in the driver’s side of the console), and Lydia and Danny have high-grade tasers. Peter refused them, but Stiles ended up sticking one in his back pocket anyway, because these people hunt werewolves and he doesn’t want Peter anything but prepared.  
(Lydia gave Jackson a knife and told him she just wanted him to be safe. He took it with suspicion but also a bit of relief.)  
Derek is, predictably, not pleased with Stiles’ postcard. Laura is also not pleased, but is moderately more even-tempered. He suspects she’d fallen into the trap of opening the envelope in front of her brother and is now stuck trailing after him, trying to keep him from causing any damage. They go to Peter’s hospital first and learn he’s been checked out by a “nice young man, son of the Sheriff, very commendable, aren’t you Peter’s niece and nephew? Why didn’t you know that?”  
Obviously that line of questioning and the series of disapproving nurses shooting glances at them is not going to leave them in a good mood. They give up on pretending after that and begin tracking him using their noses, which leads them to Stiles’ house. He’s not there, though, he and Peter and Lydia and Danny have already headed to the Argents’ nice suburban home.  
\--  
Stiles’ jeep is not inconspicuous. Parked outside the Argent home like he is, he’s purposefully painted a multi-colored, neon, flashing sign directly over his heart.  
Chris comes out soon enough, crossbow absent. Stiles waves at him, friendly-neighbor-like. “Hey, Mr. Argent!” He calls. He can see Allison’s pretty blonde head peeking out of the doorway. She’s obviously been told to stay inside. Lydia and Danny, in his van down the street, are giving him complete radio silence, just like they planned.  
Chris comes steadily, warily, towards the jeep. Stiles gives him the best fake smile he’s ever made, but Chris’ eyebrows sink down into his eyes.  
“What do you want?” He demands when he’s in range, and Stiles studies him. His face is actually pleasantly angular, though any longer and he’d be horse-faced. All the same, Allison’s beauty is obviously a carry-down from her deceased Argent grandmother, the very same first victim of Gerard in Peter’s story. She’d been merciful but firm, kind but cruel enough for justice, and Peter says her murder was the first, allowing Gerard’s reign of madness to begin and infect his daughter.  
“Where’s Kate.” Stiles says. His tone is flat, monotone. It’s not a question. It’s something he knows, but he’s testing Chris himself. Are you with her? Or with us? Will you allow justice to occur? Or will you stand in our way?  
Chris swallows. He’s angled away from the house, Stiles knows. That’s a tactical maneuver; if he replies the way Stiles hopes he will and it all goes to shit, he can claim he didn’t say a word, that he was innocent.  
“She’s…” he pauses. It’s his sister he’s selling out here. “She’s up in her room, just took a shower.”  
Stiles grins. It’s bloodthirsty, the sort of thing his third grade teacher would tell him off for. His mother used to smile just the same way before she died. “Thanks,” he says to Chris, and starts the jeep’s engine. “We’ll take it from here.”  
Inside the building, someone shrieks. Chris’ head whips around to stare up at the second floor. When he turns back to Stiles, Stiles wiggles his fingers. “Hypothetically, I’ve got your sister now.”  
\--  
Hypothetical magic had stopped being hypothetical years ago, when he was five and his mother was still alive. They’d planted wolfsbane and Queen Anne’s Lace and belladonna and told his father they were herbs. They’d written poems about clouds or stars or even pie, once, and then challenged each other to complete the spell detailed within. They’d sat on the porch and let Grandma’s favorite dinner spell cook itself. She’d given him spells and books and gems to amplify his spells and, when she’d died, even more magic power. Her line had been special. Everyone had power in it, but it could be passed down through the line to a suitable heir. Her magic had been roiling and casting since Stiles’ great-great-uncle’s grandfather’s time, so it was very powerful. It had staved off her illness until she met his father, and then she’d given some to Stiles and it couldn’t do it anymore.  
Hypothetical magic had then become secret magic because Dad couldn’t know or he’d cry, Mom had said, and then Stiles was exploding with it and he had to give it, get rid of it, and there had been Lydia, all of eight years old, and he’d instinctively given some of himself to her.  
Peter had gotten some of himself, that first day when he’d sat down at Peter’s hospital room table and helped himself to Peter’s company. Danny had gotten some the moment Peter had approved him.  
Scott had never received any.  
\--  
Hypothetical magic trusses Kate up in her room and vanishes her into the back of Danny’s van, where Peter is waiting to knock her out and take her to Hale House. It’ll be poetic, they think, to let her existence end where she ended so many others.  
By the time Chris and his hunters get there, it’s far too late for her.  
\--  
“My father will come back, and he’ll destroy you for this,” Chris warns, tucking a shirt over what Peter’s left intact of Kate’s face. It isn’t much. Even dental records would fail to identify her, and just to be safe Stiles has sent a pulse of his magic into her, negating any chance of Peter’s mauling turning her into a werewolf or something like that.  
“It’s practically an invitation,” Peter purrs, watching Lydia march smartly over to Chris and offer him a phone. Someone is shouting on the other end of the line. He raises it to his ear cautiously.  
“Hello?” He asks, and behind him in his car Victoria’s eyes narrow. Allison is sitting in the backseat, eyes wide enough to be luminous in the darkness.  
Laura cuts off, suddenly very, very quiet. A low, furious hiss translates as static over the connection. Chris goes very still. Peter is still grinning carnivorously, and waves his fingers when Chris’ head snaps up to stare at him.  
Stiles takes the phone from Chris’ hand and looks him in the eye as he adds, “I think you know what happens now. One pack’s trash, right? The hunters are thinking of… experimenting, and now they’ve got test subject #1.”  
“What do you want?” Laura snarls, and Stiles laughs. It’s not obvious yet? Peter leans over his shoulder to put his mouth over the cell’s receiver.  
“Revenge,” he whispers, and Lydia’s painted mouth twists into her patented smirk.  
And as Laura’s confused voice rises in a solo of sound, Stiles ends the call, still staring into Chris’ eyes. He spreads his arms and bows.  
“Welcome to the Zero Moment!”

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts? (*whispers* "please be gentle with me Watson" *bedroom curtains opening letting in the sunlight I haven't properly been in for about six months* "AGGHHHH!!!") ah, Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes references....they are my lifeblood in these trying times...  
> Also, Stiles references the Zero Moment. According to GoodReads, Agatha Christie wrote a book in which she calls the moment of the actual murder, the actual conclusion of the life in question, the moment of Zero. Anything before that is the story, the exposition. I completely agree (if that is actually an accurate quote. I don't know).


End file.
